Letter from Hiram Abiff - Josephus

Dear Bro Damien

I do not know whether or not this letter will reach you before your next edition. We have up here all been attending to letters from some fellow who has sent us many cheques, whatever they are, saying that they are to stimulate us. We thought Viagra came in bottles. Are we supposed to eat them?

It would take more than a piece of papyrus, even a centerfold, to simulate us. Our passions are subdued! Of course none of my generation have ever lived there let alone paid our levies and taxes. However it was a nice thought but we all would have voted for him again anyway without him spending all that money.

The garrulous politicians, full of all the hyperbole and all the money that you now have should never make it here - but you never know. For example you modern masons will all have heard of Josephus, the 1^st Century writer of Jewish history and tradition.

Josephus tells us that Enoch was the fifth after Seth and the seventh from Adam and he was the one that prophesied the flood and widespread bushfires. So that all our smarts were preserved he erected two pillars with all the knowledge on them, one of brick and the one of stone so the brick would survive fire and the stone, floods. There was never any suggestion that they were as artistic as my pillars and unlike mine they are not mentioned in Good Book. (Even though they are not in recommended reading as part of the Volume of the Sacred Law you lot with the floods in the north, the economic pestilence from Canberra and the fires in the south should have learned from history but of course first you must have wisdom to comprehend, don’t you? Some lack the required wisdom and will never learn! You get what you deserve)

Josephus (AD 37 – c 100), a Jew, was also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu. He became a Roman citizen and called himself Titus Flavius Josephus. So you can see that he would have had St Peter at those awful pearly gates on his side and he would have hoped to have the blessing of the Jewish gate keepers. The problem that we have with him is that as the commander of the Jewish garrison at Yodfat he was under siege by the Romans and when they overran the position thousands were killed and the survivors committed suicide – except for Josephus. He suggested to his men a collective progressive suicide pact but he was the only survivor. Then he became a Roman citizen. Would you trust him? He must have been as glib as some of your politicians today. I am not sure that he made it here despite St Peter’s recommendations.

It is a wonder that some of your revisionists do not have his writings as part of your Volume of the Sacred Law.

Yours fraternally

Hiram Abiff